A number of individual communication means have provisions to store a message or transfer incoming communications to an alternate location. For example, a telephone user can set a call management system to record a voice mail or have a call forwarded to a different phone number. Similarly, an email can be stored or forwarded to a different email address. Most of these communication means only handles its own type of communication. Some communication means cross over. For example, some voice over internet (VOIP) systems can record a voice call and send the voice call as a file in an email to an email address associated with the VOIP telephone system. Similarly, some fax systems can forward an incoming fax as a file to an email address. However, these systems generally have only a single alternate communication means and do not enable a user to select the alternate communication means.
Some presence management systems attempt to track or predict a user's current communication means by monitoring the recipient's usage of different communication means over time. For example, cellular telephone systems can track the locations of a user by cellular towers and determine when the user's cell phone is in use. This information can be compared to short message service (SMS) usage to estimate whether the user currently prefers to receive voice calls or messages. However, this information does not necessarily enable the user to select which form of communication is preferred at any given time. This information also does not necessarily indicate whether the user wishes to pay for the incoming call or simply receive a message. The user can set caller ID to block some calls, but this does not necessarily enable the user to receive a message as an alternative. In general, the user may not have control over how and when communication occurs with multiple communication means.